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Cottage Cheese and Egg Breakfast Muffins with Bacon and Green Onions

These delicious low-carb Cottage Cheese and Egg Breakfast Muffins with Bacon and Green Onions have lots of cottage cheese, almond flour, and egg and just a little white whole wheat flour and bacon. These tasty breakfast muffins are low-carb and South Beach Diet friendly for phase 2 or 3.

When Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks shared a recipe from Rose Elliot for Cottage Cheese Muffins, I loved the idea of a high-protein muffin with cottage cheese, eggs, Parmesan, and almond meal, with just the tiniest bit of flour, and decided to experiment and see if I could make a version that was more of a breakfast muffin. And I have to say these Cottage Cheese and Egg Breakfast Muffins with Bacon and Green Onions were definitely a success; since I first posted this recipe eight years ago, I have made these delicious breakfast muffins over and over to keep in the fridge for a grab-and-go breakfast.

These muffins have just the tiniest bit of flour, so they're still a very carb-conscious breakfast choice, but the use of a little flour plus ingredients like cottage cheese, almond flour, and Parmesan cheese make them very different in flavor and texture than my popular low-carb and gluten-free Egg Muffins. Since then I've made severalother versions of these delicious cottage cheese filled muffins including a gluten-free version, so you can tell how much I loved them.

Then recently I realized that all these recipes really need new photos if I'm going to entice any of my newer readers to try them! So I made this favorite breakfast treat again and snapped new pictures to show them off a little better. This is still one of my all-time favorite low-carb breakfasts; hope you enjoy!

(Cottage Cheese and Egg Breakfast Muffins Recipe with Bacon and Green Onions were updated with better photos, September 2015.)

Mix together the cottage cheese, Parmesan, white whole wheat flour, almond meal, salt, water, and beaten egg. Then fold in the crumbled bacon and thinly sliced green onion. Fill large muffin cups 3/4 full, bake, and enjoy! (Heidi says you can use soy flour for a gluten-free version, but I haven't tried that. I did have good success making a similar muffin with Quinoa Flakes though.)

One of these muffins is enough for me for a tasty breakfast, and since that's only 1/2 of a strip of bacon, I don't feel the least bit guilty about adding a little bacon, but use turkey bacon if you'd like to make them more South Beach Diet approved!

And just to show why I thought this recipe needed new photos, here's the original photo of Cottage Cheese and Egg Breakfast Muffins Recipe with Bacon and Green Onions from back in 2007!

Muffins can be refrigerated and reheated in the microwave. (I cut in half crosswise before heating. Be very careful not to microwave too long, or they will become tough.) I haven't tried freezing them, but I would imagine they will freeze well.

South Beach Diet / Low-Carb Diet Suggestions:
This would be phase 2 or 3 for the South Beach Diet, due to the flour; but these muffins are still low enough in carbs to work for most low-carb diets. I wouldn't worry about the small amount of bacon here, and the bacon adds a lot of flavor, but use turkey bacon if you prefer. Even with low-fat cheese, the almond meal makes these muffins relatively high in fat, so be aware of your other food choices that day.

I chose the South Beach Diet to manage my weight partly so I wouldn't have to count calories, carbs, points, or fat grams, but if you want nutritional information for a recipe, I recommend entering the recipe into Calorie Count, which will calculate it for you.

More Tasty High Protein Muffins for Breakfast:
(Recipes from other blogs not always South Beach Diet or Low-Carb friendly; check ingredients.)

Posts may include links to my affiliate account at Amazon.com, and this blog earns a few cents on the dollar if readers purchase the items I recommend, so thanks for supporting my blog when you shop at Amazon!

47 comments:

These sound absolutely delicious. I've been finding Bob's Red Mill products in our Ocean State Job Lot stores, of all places! They seem to have the entire product line, so I'm off to get some almond meal.

Lydia, how funny. I never thought of Bob's Red Mill as being anywhere but Wild Oats or some other overpriced store, so snap it up if you can get a bargain!

Peter, could be good for any meal, absolutely!

Maria and Margot, good reminder because I'm sure this will still taste great without the bacon. Also Heidi's vegetarian version was delicious.

Katie, bran flakes are also good, in a different way, but these are really tasty!

B - you're so welcome, and it reminds me that I need to check whether my flourless peanut butter cookies are gluten free.

Lucy, how funny. I think my blogger outfit will be a hit with the parents, who are very aware that I'm a food blogger. With the kids, not sure if they will get it, but at least I'll be comfy at school!

Stop, stop, you're killing me here! That combo of ingredients sounds completely irresistible and muffins are the one thing I am happy to bake on a regular basis (everything else just looks like too much hassle!). Thanks for sharing that recipe - and I agree that crisp bacon is the way forward :)

uclafan11, I'm not sure about substituting other types of flour for almond meal. The almond meal is there for people who are using this as part of a diet where you're not eating white flour or corn meal. If you don't care about that you could try substituting one of those, but I haven't tried it. I'm not enough of a baking expert to really make any recommendations about what would work.

Lisa, I honestly don't know if arrowroot would substitute for flour in a baked item like this, but Heidi did mention you could use soy flour. I think you could make this without the flour too, but it would be a bit more dense. Let us know if you try it.

This looks fantastic! I'm going to a friends house for the weekend. Do you think these would last for a few days if I made them ahead of time? (make them on Fri, eat on Sun?) Do you think they would freeze ok? Would be great to make these up for the week.

They will definitely last for quite a few days in the fridge. I would just refrigerate instead of freezing. (I used to freeze egg dishes like this, but now I prefer them when they haven't been frozen.)

These are absolutely delectable. I made them with soy flour instead of the white wheat flour. I did not have Parmesan cheese so I opted for sliced swiss cheese I shredded myself. I also omitted the meat. I love bacon, but when made with certain dishes, it has a tendency to become almost raw in texture--this is gross for me. Thank you so much for the recipe.

So glad you enjoyed them and I love knowing it will work with soy flour.

I chose the South Beach Diet to manage my weight partly because I didn't want to have to calculate the calories, points, or other nutritional information for everything I ate, so I don't have that information.

In case you are looking for yet another variation for these muffins (love, love, love them- so glad I found them on your site), I sometimes use soy chorizo, jalapeños (fresh, but I'm sure the canned ones would be fine too), and cotija cheese instead of the parmesan. ¡Qué rico!

These muffins are fantastic! I had all the ingredients on hand,except almond flour. I had almonds on hand and could have made almond flour, but looking around I had some Bob's Mill Garbonzo Bean Flour in the fridge and decided to experiment. SUCCESS! The muffins baked up perfectly and the texture was slightly dense. Hubby and I loved the taste and have decided this recipe is a keeper. I also have pictures.

I used to follow the recipe as written, with the exception of the flour, I used soy flour instead. But this time I was looking to lighten it up, so I eliminated the egg yolks and just used the whites instead, along with the soy flour. I also had to grind up my own almonds to make the almond meal/flour. They were just as delicious with a little less color. I think next time I will use a different bean flour instead of soy flour to see how it turns out.

I made these for the first time today; followed the directions exactly except for the oven temperature (mine runs hot), which I set at 350˚. Two big differences from yours: The recipe filled up 12 regular-sized muffin tins, and they came out almost over-done after 25 minutes. I'm thinking that's because of the oven temp - I need to do a temperature test. But I'm wondering why it made so many. Verdict: wonderful. I used a little salsa and am nice and full.

Great taste, but even with the well oiled muffin cups, they still terribly stuck and when paper cup was pealed off, a 1/4 of the muffin went with to :(. I wonder if flour or maybe even corn flour would prevent it from sticking?

If you use the silicone baking cups (I now prefer the individual ones) that will keep them from sticking. I don't think paper would work for this, even with flour (and personally I would not use flour; that defeats the purpose of a relatively low-carb breakfast like this.) Even a well-sprayed metal muffin pan would be better than paper muffin liners.

I'm afraid I can't offer any suggestions about what to substitute for almond meal because I haven't made them without it and I'm not good enough at baking to know what else might work. If you try something that works, I'd love to hear about it.

I also would like to know what to use in place of Almond flour, almonds etc. The specialty flours and such are really expensive for small bags where I live. I have oats, chia, couscous, and things like that as well as other (regular) flours. Thank you!!

Linda, I haven't made them with anything but almond flour and I'm afraid I'm not a good enough baker to know what else might substitute. I'm not sure you could duplicate the goodness without the almond meal; they give the muffins a nutty taste and add a lot of protein. But if you make them sucessfully with something else, I'd love to know about it.

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